I am coming to the end of a section 17 child in need enquiry. The SW assures me that the finding will be no further action. My concern is about the process that initiated this process and whether I have any rights about addressing these actions.

My child attends a state primary school and we have had a number of difficulties with how the school has dealt with issues. These have included illegal exclusions, excluding a child because me, as a parent, questioned the illegal exclusions, intimidation by a specific teacher and situations whereby the HT lied in order to protect the teacher in question.

Towards the end of last year I received a call from social services to say an anonymous call had been made to NSPCC, they did not consider the call to be genuine and thought it was malicious. They suggested that if I had any concerns regarding my child I should seek support from the early intervention mention team. I don't have concerns about my child, so I didn't seek support.

Last month I had another call from social services to state that another, more serious, anonymous call had been made to NSPCC and they asked what steps I had taken with regard early intervention, when I stated none they suggested that I was neglectful and they would need to instigate a section 17 enquiry.

I met with a social worker and discussed the nature of the allegations and it was clear at this stage that something was amiss. It became clear through our discussions that the calls to the NSPCC had been made by a member of staff at the school, in breach of the safeguarding procedure in place. The referral from the second NSPCC call to social services was identified as such by the central duty team because of its content. The central duty team raised this issue with the school who then made a formal referral. The social worker was very clear that the formal referral would not meet their usual threshold and expressed concern that the section 17 enquiry had been requested to cover up significant safeguarding issues by the school and that the behaviour of the school was malicious and intended to cause harm.

I asked the social worker to ensure that the education safeguarding team were aware of her concerns but since she has responded that they have not returned any of her calls. Can I take action to ensure that the education safeguarding team take the matter seriously and fully investigate what has happened in the school?

Something certainly seems unusual in the referral process. I can see why you would want to find out why the member of staff referred to the NSPCC instead of following the formal safeguarding procedures.

Once the children services assessment had started, I think it was the right thing to do, to cooperate with it.

If you have not already done so, you should ask for a copy of the social worker assessment as this may cast light on the referral process and children services views about the way the referral came to them.

You should ask the social worker whether she will take matters further with the education safeguarding team, if she does not get a response from them.

Is there anything you can do yourself via the school or the education department? You could contact the children’s legal centre education law advice line on 0345 345 4345 to see whether you should be pursuing a complaint yourself.